Keelo
“What are they doing?” Rin asks, standing on her toes to see over my stooped shoulder. I don’t look behind me. I don’t want to see.
“They’re…” I grind my teeth, hating that I’ve got to be the one to explain this to Rin. “They’re thinking about how they might want to become mates.”
Rin drops down onto the soles of her boots to examine my face. “But Halley isn’t Arrok.”
“No.” I can already guess what her next question’s going to be. It’s exactly the same question I had for Eot.
“So who’s going to be your mate then?”
“Akh…”
He smells like you, Halley. It’s more than I can bear. And then Eot clenched his fists, on the verge of striking me.
I must clear my throat to find my suddenly missing voice. “I guess…nobody.”
“That isn’t right.” Rin presses her hands to her straight waist and leans slightly to the right so that she can glare at the other two around me. At least we’re far enough away that we can't hear what they’re saying—and they can’t hear us.
“It isn’t wrong. It just isn’t how things are usually done,” I say, realizing that whatever I say next has the potential to affect how Rin views the world—and herself. “There are lots of things that people back on Annka do that we don’t.”
Like accepting Rin for being Rin. Like not trying to change her into somebody she’s not.
“Like, for instance, how the others are assigned mates by the Elders Coalition. We’re not doing that.” Because we’re outlaws.
She turns her large eyes back onto me, and this time I force myself to meet her gaze.
“You mean me,” she says.
I guess there’s no point not acknowledging the obvious. “And yes, I mean you, too.”
She’s silent for so long, I think I’ve done exactly what I was trying to avoid and said the wrong thing, but then she throws her arms around my neck—heedless of the dried trikon guts still splattered all over me.
I’m so surprised that I freeze. Rin doesn’t often initiate touch, and the few previous times she’s hugged us has been when Eot and I were in our monstrous form, the two of us combined somehow making a difference to whether she wanted to be held.
This is the first time she has deliberately initiated a hug with just me. Carefully, I loop a single arm around her shoulders, keeping my hold light so that she knows she can pull away whenever she wants.
Even the sharp bone of her chin digging into my shoulder does nothing to dampen my gratitude, because I have a daughter.
A daughter.
Maybe it doesn’t matter that Eot’s infatuated with Halley. Maybe it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want me too. Having Rin is enough for me.
Please, I silently beg myself. Let Rin be enough.
“Gross,” she says, her chin digging in deeper with every word. “Now they’re licking into each other’s mouths.”